Using Simulation and Data Envelopment Analysis to Evaluate Iraqi Regions in Producing Strategic Crops

Productivity of the agriculture sector in Iraq has yet to reach an acceptable level. In this paper, we introduce a practical method to help manage Iraqi agriculture sector to control resources and increase production to meet the modem century requirements of good crops. These important resources are identified as water, fertilizer, natural fertilizer, pesticides and labour. The current agricultural patterns in Iraq affect the strategic crops cultivation in the country and lessen agricultural production to sonic life-threatening limits. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which is a non-parametric tool, is proposed to identify solutions that can maximize fanners' net benefit making an optimal use of the five resources. This model also improves optimal mix of the resources. In reference to the production of each one of the three strategic crops in Iraq, the DEA model is used to find the efficiency of one region among four others in its agriculture sector, with the main problem being the constraint in the number of lands available in the situation. Hence, the simulation technique is used to generate additional regions to the four main regions adopted. This is to resolve the constriction of DEA when the decision making unit is less than the number of variables (outputs and inputs). The result is expected to show the efficiency of each of the evaluated region.